Growing coffee isn’t hard. It’s the time-consuming extraction of the beans that defeats would-be backyard growers.

Every season when the coffee bushes hidden in the shade of the Wattles Farm community garden in Hollywood start to produce cherries, one of the gardeners volunteers for the process of peeling the shells, removing the fleshy pulp along with the interior parchment, and washing and air-drying the tiny beans within.

“They’re very enthusiastic in the beginning and are still enthusiastic at the end because the coffee is very good, but they swear they’ll...

For all the razzle-dazzle of costumes worn by Michael Douglas in his uncanny incarnation as Liberace in the HBO film “Behind the Candelabra” — the crystals! the sequins! the furs! — the revelation for design fans will be lavish sets that sparkle with late ’70s and early ’80s style.

It’s a look that, for better or for worse, is experiencing a revival among contemporary designers just in time for the movie’s premiere Sunday.

“There was a lot of glamour in the '70s that really has not been repeated since,” Los Angeles designer Kelly...

The Tyre House, designed by A. Quincy Jones in the 1950s and recently restored by the Silver Lake architecture firm Escher GuneWardena, is a dreamy testament to Los Angeles' age of cool. Step inside the house's expansive, all-white living area and an 11-foot-high ceiling angles gracefully down toward a white brick fireplace that floats toward one end. Sliding glass doors open to a courtyard and pool on one side, to a steep driveway that disappears from sight on the other. Cork floors and a white sofa effortlessly sweeping along the wall add to the sensation of visual harmony.

Created when the...

The Hammer Museum exhibition opening May 25, "A. Quincy Jones: Building for Better Living," redresses what curators consider a major omission in the history of Los Angeles Modernism.

Jones, they argue, had as much, if not more, influence on Southern California architecture before his death in 1979 than many contemporaries who have since become icons of the era. Curators say Jones, who collaborated for much of his career with Frederick Emmons and lectured at USC for nearly three decades, has gone mostly unrecognized beyond his reputation for designing opulent houses for the wealthy, such as...

When it came to designing their new home in Venice, Jonathan Ward and Jin Ah Park drew inspiration from their two-year backpacking trip around the world. The couple, who work for the international design firm NBBJ, traveled from Britain to Thailand, Australia to Peru, Morocco to Mali -- a journey that they said has given rise to a modern dwelling that draws from cultures around the world yet still evokes a sense of California living.

The 2,900-square-foot home that they designed and built, dubbed the California Poppy House, will be open to the public Sunday as part of the American Institute of...

Other artists on the tour include Corrine Chaix, whose live-work studio is located on a Venice canal; the Winward Street live-work space of Jacob Kassay, who will host a pop-up show of works by Cooper Jacoby, Todd von Ammon and Steven Baldi.

Tickets...

It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t appreciate the cute factor of mouse melons. Also known as Mexican gherkins, the fruit of Melothria scabra looks like watermelons shrunk for a dollhouse tea party. Each is the size of a grape, speckled white with green striations.

Raw, the mouse melons have the taste and crunch of a fresh cucumber but with a burst of bright sour lemon from the skin. They are conversation pieces when used in salads, stir-fries, desserts or martinis. And they make wonderful bread-and-butter pickles.

Mouse melons are in the same family as cucumbers but originated...

Matthew Rolston packed the cavernous JF Chen gallery in Hollywood on Friday night to introduce L.A. to his latest project, "Talking Heads: The Vent Haven Portraits," a series of photographs featuring all-too-human ventriloquist dummies.

Much of the early coverage of the book has focused on the eerie and absurd qualities of the dummies (the Huffington Post declared them "creepy"), but through the 5-by-5-foot portraits on view at JF Chen, Rolston was able to reveal much more.

Most evident: The large format of the portraits emphasizes the human hand behind each doll face: the rosy cheeks, the...

The 21st century soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann's splashy remake of "The Great Gatsby" may be a head-scratcher, but design fans can't quibble with the period sets created by production designer Catherine Martin.

"The phone has been ringing off the hook," said Frank Pollaro, a custom furniture maker renowned for reproductions of Jazz Age designs. "People are falling in love with Art Deco again."

Pollaro, who wasn't involved in the film's production, isn't the only one noting how much excitement the film's period design has managed to generate. The look of the film's set is rooted in Martin's...

For fans of vintage design who might prop an antiquated TV or analog clock on their well-styled shelf, here's a twist from the Monrovia design firm MollaSpace: obsolete technology as home office organization tool.

MollaSpace's Home Storage System is a series of canvas bins printed with the images of retro audio equipment and accessories. We teased the then-forthcoming design in a January roundup of home organization designs, and this week MollaSpace flagged us that the bins are now available, selling for $8 (clock), $10 (radio) or $16 (speaker or TV). 

The graphics, by Balance Wu Design, are...

The preservation group Pasadena Heritage takes a turn toward the Modern when it hosts a May 19 tour of six homes built after 1940.

Stops will include homes by Lloyd Wright, Harold Zook, Ted Tyler and Lawrence Test, plus two houses by the iconic Midcentury firm Buff & Hensman: the 1954 Norton House and the 1983 Hamlin House. Patty Judy, the Pasadena Heritage education director who organized the lineup, said the last two stops serve as chronological bookends for Buff & Hensman’s work and were the suggestion of Ted Smith, the architect who carries on the practice.

The Test house is unusual,...

Learn more about sustainable design and green living as Altbuild, the Alternative Building Materials & Design Conference and Expo, opens Friday at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. 

Architects, builders and landscape designers will be among the more than 150 exhibitors on hand to discuss green design, including modular housing, rammed earth building, solar power and water conservation.

Among this year's highlights:

What makes this weekend's Echo Park Craft Fair different from larger craft fairs? Local makers and an attempt to raise the bar for artisanal design, said textile designer Rachel Craven, a co-founder of the event.

"It's all artisanal goods," Craven said. "We're really working with people in our community for our community."

The event originated in the backyards of Craven and shoe designer Beatrice Valenzuela and has expanded to include more than 50 artists such as Heather Taylor Home, who makes hand-embroidered linens; Tanya Aguiñiga, who will have jewelry at the event; Brook&Lyn, which sells...

Hot from the kiln: the Saguaro lamp from Los Angeles designer Lesley Anton. The ceramic artist’s latest light rises a stately 3 feet tall, the stoneware base sheathed in a cool speckled glaze. “In a wheel-thrown piece this size, there is a lot of stacking,” Anton said. “When you get up close, you can tell it’s handmade.”

And that’s the point: The artist’s work often goes into modern homes “needing something handmade and irregular” to soften the hard edges of clean-lined spaces. One nice touch here: The bottom of the lamp is...

Landscape designer Jay Griffith believes in reinvention — in life and in the garden. “I love recycling,” he said, referring to his preference for rescued plants, reclaimed concrete, repurposed lumber and castoffs from commercial sites, all of which compose the mixed-media installation that he calls his studio garden.

His gardens for clients are often hidden behind fences or security gates. But the grounds at his studio, 717 California Ave. in Venice, are visitor-friendly, showcasing classic Southern California plants and an ever-changing stage for ideas on outdoor living.

PHO...

Gina Thomas remembers the day one of the Russian gardeners at the Wattles Farm community garden in Hollywood insisted on tasting a plump rocoto chile she had grown. She warned him to take only a tiny bite, but he insisted he didn’t have a problem with hot peppers. He popped the entire thing in his mouth.

A few seconds later, he flushed crimson and dashed for a hose to wash out his mouth. Two weeks later, he quit the garden.

Even in the notorious world of chile peppers, the rocoto chile (Capsicum pubescens) stands out. The pepper comes with black seeds, hairy leaves and a shape that...

What's billed as "the world's first gun made with 3D printer technology" had its BBC premiere Monday with a video demonstrating how, with the exception of one small metal pin, the weapon is wholly constructed of plastic components made with a machine bought on EBay.

As L.A. at Home reported in January, 3D printer technology is advancing toward the mass market, for better or for worse. Although our Solidoodle 2 review revealed that some low-cost models are not quite ready for prime time, a surprising number of 3D printersnow can be bought for a fraction of the $8,000 reportedly paid for the...

For more than 40 years, medical marijuana advocate and longtime High Times advice columnist Ed Rosenthal has written about growing cannabis, selling more than 2 million books. He has worked to change state laws on medical marijuana and is a faculty member at the Oakland marijuana industry trade school, Oaksterdam University.

But his new book, “Protect Your Garden,” is aimed at gardeners of all persuasions. For this edited Q&A, we talked with Rosenthal about his latest endeavor, which provides a well-balanced overview of the most common garden problems: pests, disease, malnutrition...

For years the neighborhood florist was the go-to place for special-occasion arrangements and the occasional pick-me-up of cut flowers. Now as grocery stores, farmers markets -- even hardware stores -- have made fresh flowers so readily available, designers Alethea Harampolis and Jill Rizzo of the San Francisco firm Studio Choo have another suggestion: Make your own.

Harampolis and Rizzo share their floral arranging skills in "The Flower Recipe Book," a new how-to guide for creating 100 arrangements for all kinds of occasions. The book is set up as a series of recipes, with lists of...

Some homeowners might consider a 20-foot Ficus nitida rooted in the middle of a 5,400-square-foot lot to be a liability, especially when planning a major remodel. But architect Carlos Zubieta isn't one of those people.

The two-story glass addition that he completed with his wife, Tatiana Barhar, also a designer, practically embraces the towering tree, transforming a 650-square-foot Venice cottage into a fresh, contemporary family residence centered on the ficus they spent years nursing to health.

"We wanted as little separation between the inside and outside," Zubieta said, "so we built a...

With its view of the Hollywood sign and handsome brown facade, Annette Gutierrez’s 1908 house would read like a classic L.A. Craftsman if it were not for the chartreuse window trim, the first hint of her modern sensibilities.

Gutierrez jokingly calls herself an "exterior decorator" because she sees outdoor spaces just like interior spaces: rooms to be decorated. So beyond the blasts of chartreuse on the house she shares with husband Gustavo and daughter Lola in a historic part of Hollywood, the designer has found ways to make the landscape every bit as decorated a space as her living...

The giant yucca certainly lives up to its name: Yucca gigantea rises 30 feet high in ideal conditions, with white blossoms that push out from the center -- flor de izote, as the bloom is sometimes called, the national flower of El Salvador.

Many species of yucca produce edible flowers, but the giant yucca also is prized for its ornamental qualities. As the plant gets older, the base of the grayish trunk swells, taking on the primeval look of an elephant’s foot. The stalk that produces flowers will die back, but the plant will continue to send up new pups and side spears that will flower....

Sustainably minded Angelenos can head to Coldwater Canyon on Saturday and TreePeople’s Center for Community Forestry, where the environmental nonprofit is hosting workshops on rainwater harvesting, lawn replacement and tree planting.

For three decades, TreePeople has been training “citizen foresters” through its quarterly workshops. Like previous TreePeople workshops, this Saturday’s event is free and open to the public, but reservations are required.

Although the lessons can be applied to greening a backyard, TreePeople’s goal is for participants to apply skills...

Xavier Veilhan, the Paris-based artist who last year turned Richard Neutra’s VDL House in Silver Lake into a startling temporary gallery and later transformed Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 21 into a ghostly, smoke-filled, one-night-only installation, took over John Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein residence Wednesday evening for the third installment of his “Architectones” series in L.A.

Veilhan showed four works, the centerpiece of which was “Rays,” a streamlined web of white cords strung over the pool, from roof to water’s edge. It was an homm...

Not a rock goes unturned in Greg Rubin and Lucy Warren’s new book, “The California Native Landscape: The Homeowner’s Design Guide to Restoring Its Beauty and Balance” ($34.95, Timber Press). The authors give us context for the renewed interest in native gardening, describing what our land looked like before Native Americans settled here. They take us through the changes that came with European farming practices and bring us to our present state of concrete, lawns and imported ornamentals. Rubin and Warren discuss our climate, environment and soils. They impress upon us...

That sound you hear is the past calling. And possibly the future.

An enterprising group of USC students, artists and community leaders in Leimert Park have been looking to a relic, the pay phone, as a portal to the neighborhood’s rich cultural history. The result was the Leimert Phone Co., a five-week design research lab led by USC professor Francois Bar, PhD candidates Benjamin Stokes and Karl Baumann, and Ben Caldwell, the owner of the local new media center Kaos Network.

Three teams looked at the obsolete technology of the pay phone to explore how aging infrastructure could be...

When Mark Fay heard that the F.P. Fay Building was about to be demolished, the “True Blood” sound engineer drove to downtown Los Angeles to see the building named for his great-grandfather. That day, Easter Sunday, he discovered the building had already been knocked down, with little left but some ironwork and Fay Building signage on a piece of marble.

Twenty-three years and one trip to the welder later, the silver F-A-Y lettering now hangs above a treasured turntable, standing out against a living room wall's matte black chalkboard paint. In the Eagle Rock home where Mark and...

Michelle Wong tried to hold back the tears after learning that her landlady had ripped out the goji berry planted in the backyard of her apartment in Koreatown. The shrub was head-high and starting to put out little purple and white flowers where the fruit would appear in summer.

“A lot of people try to grow it, but it’s not that easy,” she said, looking at the remains of the plant. She tried to pluck a few cuttings, in hopes of starting new plants in a place that was more protected.

The loss was particularly painful for Wong because she had been using her harvest in her...

Perhaps you recall the must-see-to-believe story of the Designer Dollhouse Showcase, for which top Los Angeles architects and interior decorators revealed the obsessive-compulsive gene that drives them to get every last detail just right, even if the project at hand is just 1:12 scale of reality?

Now comes word that at the charity auction where bidding on each designer dollhouse was expected to start at $15,000, "most" of the 10 houses did sell. Officials declined to specify which ones sold, or for how much, treating the auction results like some matter of national security. But a spokeswoman...

Show houses are meant to provide inspiration and to reflect the latest trends, and the Pasadena Showcase House of Design opens Sunday with plenty of both. This year 28 designers transformed a 1941 Arcadia estate originally designed by Roland E. Coate Sr., adding color and texture that exude warmth while staying true to the home’s Monterey Colonial style.

In a long second-floor hallway, purple damask fabric applied to the wall in lieu of wallpaper adds an unexpected softness. Grass cloth and burlap appear on other walls, often used as backing for bookshelves. With that added pop of color,...

Kathleen Brenzel, editor of Sunset's latest book, “The 20-Minute Gardener,” understands the time-strapped reader's dilemma. “You just want [your garden] to look its best, with a minimum of work on your part,” she writes in her introduction. She understands you're busy “juggling career, family and community obligations.”

And so she promises a solution: “We show you how to keep your garden looking good in as little as 20 minutes a day.”

Chockablock with ideas and projects, decorative tips and well-styled photographs, many culled from the pages of...

Architect John Frane saw plenty of promise in the Venice Beach shoe box, a 1930s bungalow Spanish-ized with interior doorway arches, a tiled parapet and swirled metalwork on the windows and fence.

"Ugly duckling is a good way to describe it," Frane said of the house, painted beige with maroon trim when he bought it in 2011 and, more important, hemmed in by apartments on all four sides.

"The house has an urban side, and the big backyard had been paved over, but I saw it as potentially being a great private space."

The stucco box has since become the architect's experiment in creating seclusion...

It is a highly choreographed, unabashed spectacle, a contribution to the world of contemporary performance art from a most unexpected place: ikebana, the Japanese tradition of flower arranging.

Backed with Broadway lighting and a large supporting cast, ikebana master Akane Teshigahara is promising to turn a once-intimate art into an onstage extravaganza titled “Iemoto Ikebana Live” on April 27, transforming the stage of the Aratani/Japan America Theatre in Los Angeles into the world’s largest and most spectacular vase.

PHOTO GALLERY: "Iemoto Ikebana Live"

For Teshigahara...

Fernando Larios eyes the stand of plantains running along one side of the Francis Avenue Community Garden in Koreatown. A large cluster of fruit, just out of arm’s reach, is almost ready.

“It’ll be two more months,” says Larios, who has been keeping an eye on these plantains since someone poached the last cluster.

Once the fruit is harvested, the entire plant will be cut down to the ground, and others will rise up, he says. Most of the plant’s energy is underground, and pups will sprout up around the mother plant.

Plantains are part of the Musa genus, making...

Julie Burleigh has designed highly tailored organic gardens for clients all over Los Angeles, but at home in West Adams, her personal garden reflects a more freewheeling sensibility.

Easy-care California natives and hearty gray-blue aloes snipped from a neighbor's yard share space with giant ageratum with ethereal, lavender-colored flowers, and herbs such as African blue basil and winter savory. Bright red geraniums, figs and other familiar plantings are interspersed with less common white sage and the aromatic edible lovage, which tastes like celery and can be harvested for soups and salads....

In my Spreecast with organic gardener Christy Wilhelmi, author of the new book "Gardening for Geeks," I learned a lot: that white mildew can be treated with lactic acid, that you should never buy tall vegetable seedlings at the nursery and that volunteer tomatoes -- the ones that sprout up unplanned, perhaps from last year's fallen fruit -- are better than anything you plant intentionally.

In other words, she shared a few things not detailed in "Gardening for Geeks,"which carries the breath-defying subtitle, "DIY Tests, Gadgets and Techniques That Utilize Microbiology, Mathematics and...

For proof of how fast the business of design is changing, look no further than Fab. The site launched in 2010 as a TripAdvisor-Foursquare-Yelp social-networking hybrid called Fabulis was aimed at gay men. But having burned through most of its start-up cash, it regrouped in February 2011 with just three employees and a new mission to be an online design store.

“We started selling underwear. We sold Emeco chairs. We sold random stuff,” said Bradford Shellhammer, the company's co-founder and chief design officer. “I remember going through my house and taking every single book...